Europe: the Islamist ambition and the numbers

The short answer #

Islamist leaders have said openly, and repeatedly, that they expect Islam to win Europe. Some speak of conquest by the sword. More speak of victory through preaching, migration and birth rates. Organised movements are working towards that goal now: France's government reported in 2025 on a deliberate strategy of "Islamisation from below".

The numbers show a real and fast-growing Muslim population, concentrated in particular cities. They do not show Europe becoming Muslim-majority. No official projection shows a Muslim majority in any European country by 2050. Irregular migration into the EU has fallen two years running, and Islamists remain a small, organised minority among Europe's Muslims. The ambition is documented. Its success is not inevitable, and it depends largely on whether Europe enforces its own laws.

1. What Islamist leaders have said #

These are their own words, from their speeches, sermons and publications.

• Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the most influential cleric of the Muslim Brotherhood tradition (d. 2022), wrote in a 2002 fatwa that Islam "will return to Europe as a conqueror and victor" after being expelled twice. He added that the conquest "will not be by the sword but by preaching and ideology."¹
• Muammar Gaddafi, then ruler of Libya, said in a speech broadcast on Al Jazeera on 10 April 2006 that "there are signs that Allah will grant victory to Islam in Europe — without swords, without guns, without conquest." He predicted that "the 50 million Muslims of Europe" would turn it into a Muslim continent.²
• Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, now Turkey's president, recited in 1997 a poem attributed to Ziya Gökalp: "The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers." He was convicted of inciting religious hatred and served four months in prison.³ In March 2017 he told Turks living in Europe: "Have five children, not three. You are Europe's future."⁴
• Islamic State's spokesman al-Adnani declared in September 2014: "We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women, by the permission of Allah." The cover of the group's magazine Dabiq showed its black flag over St Peter's Square in Rome.⁵
• Anjem Choudary, the British preacher whose network was linked to a quarter of the UK's Islamist terrorism offenders, spoke "happily", in the words of the judge who jailed him in 2016, "of the prospect of the flag of Islam flying over 10 Downing Street and the White House."⁶ He was sentenced to life in 2024.⁷

These statements differ in method, from the slow route to the fast one. They share the same aim: a Europe under Islam.

2. The slow road: influence from within #

The Muslim Brotherhood tradition does not seek to conquer Europe by force. Its method is gradual: preaching, schools, charities, community bodies and politics.

France, 2025. A report commissioned by the French government and presented to its Defence Council in May 2025 describes a Brotherhood strategy of "islamisation par le bas", Islamisation from below. It works through "entryism" and a "double discours": telling the public one thing while pursuing another.⁸ The report counts:

• a sworn inner circle of 400 to 1,000 members;
• 139 places of worship affiliated to the Brotherhood-linked network, plus 68 "close" to it, about 7% of France's 2,800 Muslim places of worship but 10% of those opened between 2010 and 2020;
• about 91,000 Friday worshippers at those sites;
• 280 associations and 21 schools with 4,200 pupils.⁸

It concludes that the threat, "even if it is long-term and does not involve violent action", poses a risk to "the fabric of society and republican institutions" and to national cohesion.⁸ France's interior minister called it "un islamisme à bas bruit", a low-noise Islamism.⁹ In 2026 his successor proposed a law to dissolve associations for "entryism" and freeze their assets.¹⁰

Britain, 2015. The UK government's review of the Muslim Brotherhood found that it prefers "non violent incremental change… often on the basis that political opposition will disappear when the process of Islamisation is complete", but is "prepared to countenance violence… where gradualism is ineffective."¹¹ It found "significant differences" between the Brotherhood's communications in English and in Arabic, and an influence in Britain "disproportionate to their size."¹¹ For balance, the same review found no sign that the Brotherhood itself still openly promoted an Islamic state in Britain.¹¹ In December 2025 the Prime Minister said a ban on the Brotherhood was "under very close review."¹²

"The Project." A 1982 Brotherhood strategy paper found in a 2001 police raid in Switzerland sets out a phased plan for the "Islamic movement" towards "establishing an Islamic government on earth": working within institutions, influencing centres of power and building Islamic organisations.¹³ Its authorship is unknown, and no one has shown it was adopted as a plan. But its themes match what the French and British reviews later found.¹³

3. The numbers #

3.1 How many Muslims live in Europe now #

3.2 Projections for 2050 #

Pew's projections run three scenarios: no migration at all, regular migration continuing, and the high refugee flows of 2014–16 continuing indefinitely.¹⁸

Even with no migration, Europe's Muslim share rises, because Muslims are younger (median age 30.4 against 43.8 for non-Muslims) and have more children (2.6 per woman against 1.6).¹⁸ But in no scenario does any European country approach a Muslim majority by 2050.¹⁸ The fertility gap also narrows across generations: the daughters of Muslim immigrants generally have fewer children than their mothers.²⁰

3.3 Migration #

• Into the EU. Frontex recorded about 380,000 irregular border crossings in 2023, the highest since 2016. The figure fell to about 239,000 in 2024 and about 178,000 in 2025, the lowest since 2021. The Central Mediterranean route from Libya and Tunisia remains the busiest. In 2025 the top nationalities were Bangladeshis, Egyptians and Afghans.²¹ In the first seven months of 2026, crossings were 37% lower than a year earlier.²²
• Into the UK by small boat. 29,437 people in 2023, 36,816 in 2024 and 41,472 in 2025, the second-highest year on record. Crossings in 2026 have been running about 47% below 2025.²³
• Asylum. About 1.0 million applications were lodged in the EU in 2024 and about 822,000 in 2025.²⁴ Many applicants are not Muslim; Venezuelans were among the largest groups. Migration totals cannot be read as a count of Muslim arrivals.

4. What Europe's Muslims say #

Attitude surveys show wider support for religious law than formal Islamist membership would suggest.

• France, 2025: 46% of Muslims said Islamic law should be applied in the country where they live, 15% fully and 31% partly. 57% of those aged 15–24 said Islamic rules matter more than French law.²⁵ The poll's method has been criticised.²⁶
• Six countries, 2013: 65% of Muslims of Turkish and Moroccan origin said religious rules matter more than the laws of the country they live in, against 13% of native Christians.²⁷
• Britain, 2024: 32% of Muslims said implementing Sharia in the UK within 20 years would be desirable (see the Islamism page and the research file).

Against that, Germany's domestic intelligence service counts 28,645 people in the Islamist movement, about half of one per cent of Germany's Muslims.²⁸

5. How Europe is responding #

• Elections. Parties campaigning against immigration and Islamism have grown across Europe. Examples include Austria's FPÖ, first in 2024 with 28.8%; Germany's AfD, second in 2025 with 20.8%; and France's National Rally, with 31.4% in the 2024 European elections. In Britain, Reform UK gained about 1,450 councillors in May 2026. Results are mixed: the Dutch PVV and the Sweden Democrats lost ground in 2025 and 2026.²⁹
• Law and policy. The EU's Pact on Migration and Asylum has applied since June 2026.³⁰ In November 2025 Britain made refugee status temporary and lengthened the route to settlement to 20 years, explicitly following Denmark.³¹ France has passed its 2021 law against "separatism" and is legislating against entryism. Britain banned Hizb ut-Tahrir in 2024.

6. Assessment #

What is documented. Islamist leaders and movements openly aim to bring Europe under Islam. They name the method: preaching, numbers and influence, and in the case of the jihadist groups, violence. Organised networks are pursuing that goal inside Europe's institutions, as France's own government found in 2025. A significant minority of Europe's Muslims, in some surveys close to half, say religious law should take precedence over national law. Europe's Muslim population will keep growing.

What is not. The data do not support the claim that Europe is about to become Muslim. Even Pew's highest scenario leaves every European country with a non-Muslim majority in 2050. Irregular migration has been falling since 2023, and the fertility gap narrows over generations. Islamists are a minority of Europe's Muslims, and many Muslims reject them.

Why the difference matters. The theory that Europe's native population is being deliberately "replaced" has been used to justify mass murder. The killer of 51 Muslims in Christchurch in 2019 called his manifesto "The Great Replacement".³² The argument this site makes rests on documented Islamist aims, the classical doctrine they draw on and the evidence of what they do. That is what makes it hard to dismiss.

What decides the outcome. Europe's future depends less on numbers than on enforcement. Whether Islamism succeeds turns on whether Europe applies one law to everyone, prosecutes incitement, bans the organisations that promote violence, controls and screens migration, and backs the Muslims who reject Islamism. See How free societies stop Islamism.

Sources #

Next: Research file →